LAS VEGAS — NASCAR fining Denny Hamlin for offering an honest assessment of its new Sprint Cup car should make drivers in the garage cringe.

Yes, they know they can be fined for making disparaging comments about the sport. But in the past, those fines weren’t for comments about how a car handles. In the past, some fines were even understandable.

This one? Not so much. Fining Hamlin $25,000 fine was a gross overreaction that could damage NASCAR’s credibility.

It’s a fine that could discourage drivers from offering honest, genuine opinions about the sport, possibly stifling the outspoken and colorful personality that NASCAR and fans have said they want to see from the sport's drivers.

In the past, drivers were fined for such things as telling fans to stay home if they only wanted to see wrecks or for claiming that NASCAR officials threw a caution flag to bunch up the field and manipulate the outcome of a race or for saying that fuel injection was a public relations ploy with not much racing benefit.

Hamlin’s fine appears to be different. He gave an honest assessment of the racing last week at Phoenix International Raceway.

And now he’s $25,000 lighter in the wallet for it. That’s good for the NASCAR Foundation, which gets the money collected from fines, but bad for the fan perception of NASCAR, which now will be considered an oversensitive censor of free speech.

In typical fashion, NASCAR officials won’t disclose the details of exactly what Hamlin said that ticked them off.

“I don't want to be the pessimist, but it did not race as good as our generation five cars,” Hamlin said in a postrace interview on pit road. “This is more like what the generation five was at the beginning. The teams hadn't figured out how to get the aero balance right.”

In the media center later, Hamlin said: “I hate to be Denny downer, but I just didn't pass that many cars today. That's the realistic fact of it. You look and we started 40 something, we finished third and you think that we just motored our way through the pack, and that's just not the case of what happened.”

What Hamlin said is no different than what fans were thinking and saying immediately following the race. All week long, fans on social media and talk shows have complained about the lack of passing at Phoenix and expressed concerns about the new car after just two races.

NASCAR has the right to fine competitors. And if they claim that the sport is fixed or that NASCAR just wants rules that cause more wrecks, then a fine for those kind of comments is somewhat understandable.

But Hamlin’s comments at Phoenix did not reach that scale. Are fans not going to come to a race because Hamlin said it’s tough to pass like it was with the previous car?

Fans can see that with their own eyes. They didn’t need Hamlin to tell them that it was hard to pass at Phoenix.

The people hurt by such actions are the fans, who want to hear and read unfiltered emotion and analysis from the drivers. Fans for years have complained that most drivers are too bland and don't show enough personality and offer enough honest opinions about the sport. NASCAR officials have said that they want to see more raw emotion and personality from the drivers.

This fine curtails that.

NASCAR officials believe that negative driver comments — remember Kyle Busch’s line of “it sucks” after he won the first Car of Tomorrow race? — had an impact on fan perception of the COT for its entire existence.

But the Gen-6 car is already ahead of the game. Every driver says that the car looks better, and fans pretty much agree.

Many fans understand that new cars are a work in progress. And NASCAR executives know that, or at least they should.

By fining Hamlin, NASCAR told fans Wednesday that it doesn’t want drivers giving honest assessments of the new car. They want them to either keep quiet or sugarcoat their responses to manipulate public perception.

All he said was that the car is behind the previous car and needs more work.

NASCAR is being too sensitive in this situation and it will pay for it. Fans now will keep Hamlin’s fine in the back of their minds whenever drivers are asked about the quality of the racing or the new car. Fans will wonder if drivers are giving an honest opinion or just saying what they have to so they won’t be fined.

NASCAR does give its drivers leniency to complain about officiating or judgment calls more than other sports leagues and that policy is a breath of fresh air.

But to use a term from officiating, this was a blown call, an overreaction for what apparently is the sanctity of the new Gen-6 car.